


Health Insurance

by waterbird13



Series: Tumblr Fics [250]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Discussions of abuse, Doctor's visit, Gen, History of abuse, Illness, Sam's body is a mess, Stanford Era, Suspected abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-11
Updated: 2016-10-11
Packaged: 2018-08-21 22:18:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8262356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waterbird13/pseuds/waterbird13
Summary: Having student health insurance means Sam can get some help when he can't fight off whatever this sickness is.It also means having doctors poke at him and see more than he usually gives away.





	

* * *

Student healthcare is pretty great, Sam decides.

Sure, they had healthcare while he was growing up, but it was fake, and therefore only to be used in the direst of emergencies, lest someone find out that it was worthless. A two-week flu wouldn’t have counted. Hell, with John, a two-week flu wasn’t even a good enough excuse for a day off.

But at Stanford, he can get checked out and have a doctor actually treat him and assure him he’s not dying, which sounds pretty damn good to Sam, so he stumbles into the clinic, manages to make an appointment, and collapses into an uncomfortable but nevertheless entirely welcome chair.

They see him pretty quickly, which Sam is sure is a testament to how bad he looks.

He talks to a nurse for a while, who takes his vitals and his list of complaints. Then he has to wait for a doctor, who takes his own sweet time, but then again, Sam isn’t exactly in a position to complain.

The doctor shows up, chats for a moment, then asks Sam to pull down the flimsy paper hospital gown so he can get a listen to Sam’s lungs. Everything seems calm–Sam may personally feel like he’s dying, but the logical part of his brain tells him this guy sees people as bad off or worse than him ten times a day, and they all seem to live. That is, everything seems calm until the guy gets a good look at Sam with the paper gown pooling around his waist.

He seems to freeze up a moment, but catches himself. “Take a deep breath for me,” he instructs, putting the ice cold end of the stethoscope to Sam’s back. Sam does his best.

It goes on like that, and the doctor begins slipping questions in that, Sam knows full well, have nothing to do with his flu. Like, where he got the scar across his right pec, or the thin, old one that bisects his belly button (werewolf, particularly angry spirit, although Sam isn’t going to share that). Or, when he last ate, and how much, and does he often have trouble keeping weight on. And, hey, what’s his workout routine like anyways, to build that much muscle on such a skinny frame.

He doesn’t come out and say anything, but Sam’s gotten a more abbreviated version of this runaround from school nurses before. Then, he hadn’t said something because he didn’t want to be taken away, didn’t want to leave Dean, knew John would just come track him down and take him back, anyways. Now, it doesn’t matter. He’s away. It’s over.

He finishes with the stethoscope and staring down Sam’s throat and palpitating his throat and sighs. “You going home for the break?” he asks.

Sam has honestly almost forgot that winter break is coming up. _Finals_  are coming up, and that should mean winter break, but, somehow, they disconnected in Sam’s mind.

“No,” he says. “I don’t go home anymore.”

The doctor seems to let out a sigh of relief. “Right,” he says, projecting false cheer. “Well, you’ll have plenty of time to rest up then,” he continues, like that had been the point of the question to begin with. “It looks like just a stomach bug your body is having some trouble fighting. That’s serious enough, but it isn’t anything worse. I’m going to start you on a round of some hard-hitting antibiotics. You allergic to any?”

Sam shrugs. He has no idea. He’s never done antibiotics before.

The doctor clears his throat. “Right,” he says. “Well, we’ll hope not. If anything goes wrong, contact us right away, we’ll switch you to something else. But these should start giving you some improvement. And if they don’t, come back. We’ll try again.”

Sam nods and takes the hastily scrawled prescription, reaching for his jeans. The doctor heads for the door. “And Sam?” he says, hesitating by the handle.

“Yeah?”

“Take care of yourself,” the man says.

Sam nods. “I am,” he promises.

The doctor leaves, and Sam gets dressed, hiding all the signs of his past life that had scared the doctor from sight.

They’ll always be there. But at least they’re not going to get any worse, he supposes.


End file.
